Tuesday, February 28, 2012

I hope you are having a Seusstastic week!
I finished a new time game last night. It is Seuss-themed, of course! It is similar to the Valentime unit, where the kids use a dry-erase marker to draw in the hands on each analog clock. Here are a few pictures:

Click on one of the pictures above to snag your copy!
If you haven't done so already, make sure to grab your Seusstacular Roll and Cover freebie from last Tuesday's post here.
Also, don't forget to answer the Dr. Seuss poll question on our facebook page! {It's a 1-click answer!}

I also finished up my Chocotastic Math Mini-Unit! It includes three chocolate-themed math games: Chocotastic Roll and Cover, Chocolate Place Value, and Sweet Scoot Word Problems Game {mixed addition and subtraction to 20}. These games are perfect for small group, math tubs, or station activities. Check it out:

Chocolate Place Value

Sweet Scoot Word Problems Game: Mixed Addition and Subtraction to 20

I was originally going to include literacy centers in this chocolate unit. I changed my mind, so I'm offering this writing prompt to my wonderful readers for free. :) Click the picture to download.

Lastly, I'm sure you have heard by now about Teachers Pay Teachers Leap Day sale!!!! Every item in my Tpt store will be 20% off. Use this code for an additional 10% off: L2P9Y

That means that you can get a total of 28% off of every single item in my store!! {I know math isn't my forte, and it seems like it should equal 30%... but trust me on this one...}
Many tpt sellers are offering the same discount on their products! Yay! I've already filled my cart full of wonderful items and can't wait to purchase them all tomorrow during the sale! :)

Here is one I've already got in my cart!
My friend Hilary from Rockin' Teacher Materials just posted her new Math Mystery for March! If you've read my posts before you already know how much my kids LOVE these! You can grab your own copy of The Case of the Mixed-Up March Madness here or look at some of her other products at her store.

Tpt doesn't have sales too often so take advantage of this opportunity to grab anything you have had your eye on!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

There has been a lot of controversy lately regarding the legality of "pinning" onto personal pinboards on Pinterest. If you are a pinner, I strongly suggest you read up on the subject. Pinterest's own Terms of Use are a bit confusing.Will I be deleting my Pinterest account or my boards? No way! But I will continue to be careful in what I pin and share {and make sure to link back to the original source}. Even though Pinterest is an online sharing community, I still do not want to be liable for any copyright infrigement hugabaloo.

Laura Candler at Corkboard Connections has created a "Permission to Pin" badge. I have joined other educators in displaying this badge on the right-side toolbar of my blog. What this means is that:

Of course, we had to bring it all back around to ol' George again so we decided to write him a letter. This helped us review our letter writing skills and my kiddos got to use a little persuasive writing to tell Washington exactly what he should have done to prevent his teeth from falling out. (Plus, I got to use it as a formative assessment to see what everyone had learned over the last few days! Win-win!)

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

I created a new Roll and Cover game for March that practices adding 3 numbers. In the spirit of Read Across America, it is Seuss themed! For younger kids, you can have them add the dice with the dots on it. For older kids, have them add 3 dice together that have only numbers (no dots!).

Monday, February 20, 2012

Ok. These are by far my kid's absolute favorite games right now. I'm not sure if it is because they love the partner competition, love math (something tells me that's not it...), or love the rock, paper, scissors hand game. Whatever the reason, my kids beg for these during math time each day! And that, my friends, is why I have created so many versions of this here lately. :)

Here's how to play:

Deal out all
cards into two piles face down (one pile for each player).Both players draw a card from their
pile.Each player must read the number
sentence aloud and solve it correctly.Once answers have been given, players lay their cards down to see who
has won the round.Rock beats scissors,
scissors beats paper, and paper beats rock.If a WILD card is drawn, the player may choose rock, paper, or scissors
for that round.If it is a tie, both
cards are returned to the middle of each player’s stack. The winner of the
round sets both cards into a separate pile of his/her winnings.Play continues until all cards are gone.The player with the greater number of cards
in his/her winnings pile at the end of the game is the overall winner.

Here are some examples of what the cards look like:

Here are the available versions: {Click on the link to download previews or purchase)

I know your kiddos will enjoy these as much as mine do! If you purchase 2 of the Rock, Paper Scissors games, I would like to send you another version of the game for FREE! After you have made your purchase, please e-mail me at mary.lirette(at)yahoo.com to let me know which version you would like me to send you for free. Please also include your Tpt username in your e-mail so that I will know that you have already purchased 2 of the games. Thanks!

Sunday, February 19, 2012

How many times do your kids go to the writing center and just sit there because they can't think of anything to write? Or they have an entry in their writing journal with only the date on it? Picture prompts stimulate them visually and ask them specific questions to guide their thinking.

Plus, we all know how difficult it is to teach inferencing, especially in the younger grades! Picture prompts really get them looking for clues to support their opinions and ideas!

Want to know the best part about this link up? These ladies have created a Pinterest board to go along with this linky party so everyone has access to over one hundred picture prompts for free! There are already over 2000 followers of the board! They are also planning to compile all of the picture prompts into a free ebook to share with everyone. Love it!

Here are a few that I created this afternoon. All of these pics belong to me, with the exception of the Antarctica ones that were taken by my best friend. {Thanks, Teresa!}

Saturday, February 18, 2012

We focused hard on Abraham Lincoln this week in honor of his birthday and the upcoming President's Day holiday! If you missed it, check out our Measuring Up to Abe activity. We wrapped up our study yesterday and my kiddos got the chance to show what they have learned through writing. We made these adorable Abraham Lincoln's from Amy Lemon's Presidential Pack. You can get the packet for free here. {love her!}

My students also made these adorable dinosaur landforms pictures. I found the idea on Pinterest of course! Next week I think we will attempt some edible landforms practice...yum!

In other news, I posted a free cloze sentence game that I used about this time last year in kindergarten. It is a space-themed small group or partner game that uses high frequency and CVC words to practice cloze sentences (fill in the blank). Grab your copy for free by clicking any of the pictures. I hope your sweetpeas enjoy it!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Today my students and I created a life-size Abraham Lincoln. We are
studying him, along with Washington, for President's Day. We are also
in the middle of our unit on measurement so we decided to incorporate
Lincoln into our math lesson for the day.
Here is a picture of our Pinterest inspired Abe (all 6 foot 4 inches of him!):

Though I would definitely consider myself lacking in artistic ability, I did manage to freehand ol' Abe while my kids were at P.E. this morning. Once they returned, my students colored him in and made sure he was exactly 6 feet and 4 inches. During math, we took turns measuring ourselves next to him. They were amazed at how tall he actually was once he was up on the wall. :) We taped sticky-notes to the wall to show our heights in comparison to his and each child had their picture taken standing nice and proud next to him. All in all, it was a pretty exciting integration of subjects. The best part? Since he is on display in the hallway with a tape measure next to him, anyone who walks by can partake in the fun. There's nothing like having a crowd of excited children outside your door throughout the day! :)

Monday, February 13, 2012

I'll be honest. Valentine's Day has completely snuck up on me. I'm still not over the 100th Day and am certainly not feeling 100% prepared for tomorrow's festivities. However, we did manage to get a few cutesy things accomplished today. Take a look:

This week's story in our reading series is One Dark Night by Hazel Hutchins. It is a sweet story about a boy who helps protect a stray cat and her kittens during a storm. We are revisiting the skills of plot and theme this week also. So, in the spirit of Valentine's Day (and our cat story), we created our own spin on Cara Carroll's adorable "Love, Splat" craft.

We also managed to decorate our white bags for tomorrow's Valentine's Exchange. My kids "free-styled" it with heart di-cuts and scrap construction paper.

In between, we managed to review telling time in small group, using my Valen-time activities.

What's on the agenda for tomorrow? Well, here is what I am thinking...

I also plan to create these Pinterest-inspired heart maps. Perfect for reviewing adjectives. :)
They are from Shenanigans In Second.

I've been saving Rockin' Teacher Material's latest Math Mystery for weeks! My kids are psyched about doing this tomorrow during math stations! We will also be playing her FREE Addition/Multiplication Bump games! {Thanks, Hilary!}

While we are talking math stations, I think we'll be playing this one too. It's from Oceans of First Grade Fun (another free one!) I'm going to just use the cards for adding 3 numbers and the last recording sheet. I can't make it too easy on my 2nd graders.... :)

Lastly, I plan to use the Sweet Spelling Task Cards I got as a freebie from Denise as a Scoot game. She offered the cards in her January Sunny Side Up newsletter. She always includes great freebies in her newsletters that are not offered anywhere else! Check out her blog here to subscribe to her monthly newsletter. Download her Valentine's Sweetheart Subtraction Slide for free while you are there!

Of course, I'm sure we will end our day with loads of sugar at our afternoon party. :)